Just a reminder that in some places, being a Christian still means something more than slapping “WWJD” on your bumper before you go 80 MPH through downtown to “witness” to the cops….
Islam
Archived Posts from this Category
While the media around the world often is offensive for the sake of offense, in the case of Danish papers reprinting Mohommed cartoons, I agree with the media outlets who have reprinted them. When it comes to politics, there is no greater right than the right for people to have free speech. This right should not be trampled by any religious group, and of course if Shaira law is ever put into effect in America the first thing that would go is the entirety of the Constitution. None of the Constitution is harmonic with Islam.
Sadly, most American news outlets are not printing these cartoons. Somehow, they’ve got a misguided sense that one cannot offend Muslims at all costs (note that this rule does not apply to offending Christians–probably because Christians don’t go around blowing up innocent people when they get offended). It is quite ironic that the country that has the First Amendment is exercizing censorship on behalf of those who would destroy the First Amendment if they had political power.
Free speech is too important of an issue to kowtow to extremists. If we surrender our right to speak out against what we disagree with, it is only a matter of time before everything else crumbles away too.
File This Under: Who Woulda Seen THAT Coming?
Former Pakistania P.M. Banazir Bhutto was assassinated this morning. And while the title of this blog post (who woulda seen that coming?) could refer to that, it doesn’t. Instead, it refers to the dingbat wing of our nation.
For instance, comments on this ABC blog post include such gems as:
ok, this has all the signs of crap. No matter what comes out now, AlQueada has been associated with this. Welcome back to the politics of fear. Next, we will hear how someone admitted of this plot under torture and that if we had been allowed to be more aggressive with it we might have found something out sooner.
Posted by: Louis | Dec 27, 2007 12:10:48 PM
And my personal favorite:
A perfect excuse from the White House to enter in Pakistan????? How many american kids will die now? How many troops will be send to Pakistan?? How many mothers will be crying? Please, my friends No more War…no more suffering.
Posted by: norma | Dec 27, 2007 12:24:34 PM
Yes. The segment of our country that knows only blind hatred of George W. Bush thinks that this is all a big conspiracy for us to invade Pakistan now! There is no reasoning with people such as this.
But look at the end of the above post: “Please, my friends No more War…no more suffering.”
There’s a huge problem with this mentality. If you do not go after the thugs, you will get nothing but pain and suffering. Sorry “norma”, but those of us in the real world recognize that sometimes we need to kill people who would kill us. If you don’t believe it, let’s move it to a different topic. Take the gangsters of the 1930s. Do you suppose when Bruno shook down the store owners for “protection money” that, if the owner said, “Please, my friend. No more war. No more suffering. Let’s all get along” that Bruno woulda said, “Gee, you’re right”? Of course not. Bruno would have said, “Give me the money or I’ll cap you.”
When someone is already willing to do harm to an innocent person, then you’re not going to stop him with words. The fact is, evil people exist in the world. And evil people prey on others. They do not care about your concept of non-violence. They are more than willing to blow you to bits to get their way. This is reality.
There’s a reason God instituted government with the power of the sword.
This Is Because Christian Fundamentalists Don’t Detonate
I just saw this post: Washington Post, Other Newspapers Won’t Run ‘Opus’ Cartoon Mocking Radical Islam. This comes a week after they did publish an “Opus” cartoon mocking Jerry Falwell.
Here’s the interesting little tidbit. The Washington Post Writers Group is the syndicate for Berkeley Breathed, the author of “Opus.” When they sent out the cartoon to the local papers, they warned that Muslims might find the cartoon offensive. Amy Lago said she flagged the strip and, of course, also claims she “do[es] that fairly regularly with materials that might pose issues for local areas.”
Of course, Ms. Lago did not send out such an alert regarding the Falwell cartoon. Perhaps this is because, as much as they are vilified in the press, Christian fundamentalists don’t detonate.
The Christian riot consists of people boycotting Disney for a month.
The Muslim riot consists of lots of burning objects and dead people.
The article of course ends with what can only be described as “a keen sense of the obvious”:
As far as whether the Post and the Post Writers Group syndicate treated content about conservative Christians differently than it did content about conservative Muslims, it certainly could be taken that way.
“It appears on the surface to be a double standard,” Burford said, “but at the same time, the climate of the world probably informs their decision with how to go forward with it.”
(Of course, I cannot resist the temptation: “The climate of the world” informs editorial decisions? That Global Warming is so pesky!!!!)
In any case, it would be nice of certain individuals *coughcoughRichardDawkinscoughcough* would own up to the fact that not all religions are equal, and, in fact, mocking Christians is a much less successful method of suicide than mocking Muslims. But when your template is “All religions are evil” you can’t even see that which is labled under the “keen sense of the obvious.”
March 27, 2006: 3:09 pm: CalvinDudeIslam
Two men are willing to die for their beliefs. The first is a Christian in Afghanistan who refuses to submit to Islam. The second submits to that Islam.
The first guy was working for an international Christian group, helping Afghani refugees in Pakistan. He was arrested for carrying a Bible.
The second man went to Afghanistan and talked with Osama bin Laden about becoming a suicide pilot. He dreamed about flying a plane in an attack on the United States. He was arrested and then lied to investigators so 3,000 innocent people could be killed.
Which one of these individuals would you like to hang out with?
Anyone who thinks that Christianity and Islam are equal religions needs to get a clue. Here we see:
“Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hardline regime was ousted in 2001.
That’s right, the moderate position is that if you were a Muslim and you become a non-Muslim, you must die. (I think the folks over at Debunking Atheism should consider what would have happened if they were ex-Muslims instead of ex-Christians.)
If this doesn’t highlight the difference between the two religions, it’s only because you are refusing to see. Most people probably can’t even remember the last time a Christian blew up an abortion clinic–and even if they did have memories that went back that long, they’d have to acknowledge that the overwhelming Christian response from everyone including the “Religious Right” was condemnation of the whackos who did such things.
Islam, on the other hand, continues to blow up people daily.
Atheists like to say that all religions are equal, and that religion is the heart of all the problems in the world. This is patently absurd, and it’s fairly easy to prove:
Would you rather offend a Christian (which the Debunkers do constantly) or a Muslim?
Tell me again how these are equal?
Apparently, Germany doesn’t allow you to “insult” religions. This really makes me wonder what would happen if that law were in effect here in America.
Needless to say, I’m opposed to it. Not because I think brilliant people need to go around mocking Islam (they don’t), but because people should be arrested for “insult.” It’s just one of those feel-good do-nothing laws that suffocates free speach.
February 21, 2006: 3:26 pm: CalvinDudeIslam
This Is Scary, But Enlightening
In Brit Hume’s Grapevine we read the following:
A government minister in India has offered $11.5 million to anyone who beheads one of the Danish artists responsible for those controversial cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
Muhammad Quereshi — minister of state for Haj and Minorities Welfare in India’s largest state, said “the avenger” would also receive his weight in gold, adding that the money would be paid by the people of his province.
The state’s home secretary tells the Arab News that Quereshi “was simply expressing the common feeling of members of his community” and violated no laws since he “did not make the announcement in his capacity as a minister.”
What’s more frightening, the fact that this guy said it, or the fact that it was characterized as “the common feeling of members of his community”? Seriously, though, one cannot help but see the difference between the Christian community and the Islamic community. In Alabama, a bunch of Christian churches have been burned to the ground and destroyed. Christians are taking up arms and calling for the beheading of those responsible…no wait a second, they’re not doing that. They’re not doing…anything.
Meanwhile, cartoons have got the Muslims engaged in civil discourse such as burning down buidlings, rioting, and threatening to behead cartoonists. All for an “insult” to Islam.
